US State Department: Mounting pressure to cut off funding for Hezbollah

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The US State Department confirmed that the administration of President Donald Trump continues to put pressure on Hezbollah, through sanctions targeting its financial resources, indicating that the party will not be able to recover under the current administration.

The US State Department said in exclusive statements to Al Arabiya that Washington continues to strangle Hezbollah's financial resources through sanctions, stressing that the party "will not be able to recover under the Trump administration."

The US State Department denied the validity of the talk about sending money from Iran to Hezbollah, and described this news as a “fabricated story,” while accusing the party of promoting what it described as “false allegations” about its continued receipt of money from Tehran.

The American statements come within the framework of the continued policy of sanctions and financial pressure on Hezbollah, as Washington confirms that targeting the party’s funding sources represents one of its policy paths towards it, in parallel with the sanctions it imposes on individuals, entities and networks linked to its financing.

The United States has been imposing sanctions on Hezbollah for years, as the US State Department classified the group as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, then classified it as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist in 2001 under Executive Order 13224, making financial sanctions one of the main axes of US policy towards the party.

During 2025, the US Treasury Department intensified its targeting of networks that it said were helping Hezbollah collect and transfer funds, and the measures included financial officials, companies, and commercial fronts in Lebanon and Iran, in addition to networks to circumvent sanctions. In March 2025, the US Treasury targeted a network of 5 individuals and 3 companies that it said supported Hezbollah's financial team and used business projects and oil smuggling networks to generate and transfer revenues.

In November 2025, Washington imposed sanctions on individuals that it said facilitated the transfer of tens of millions of dollars from Iran to Hezbollah through exchange companies and exploited the cash economy in Lebanon. The US Treasury said that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard had transferred more than a billion dollars to Hezbollah since January 2025, most of it through exchange companies, according to a US Treasury statement.

The escalation continued during 2026. In February, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a gold trading company and a procurement network that it said constituted two mechanisms used by Hezbollah to preserve its financial resources, noting the gold company’s connection to the Al-Qard Al-Hassan Foundation, which has been subject to US sanctions since 2007.

In March, Washington targeted a network of 16 individuals and entities that it said had raised more than $100 million through financial schemes linked to Hezbollah, while other measures in June targeted officials and business networks linked to the party in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Oman.

In August 2026, the US Treasury escalated the pressure by targeting 10 individuals that it said were part of a network responsible for transferring cash to Hezbollah.

The US Treasury Department explains in its 2026 National Terrorist Financing Risk Assessment that Hezbollah relies on commercial projects, front companies, exchange networks, and cash transfers to finance its activities, in addition to smuggling cash from Iran to Lebanon. The ministry says that the complexity of these networks and their cross-border nature makes them vulnerable to being targeted by sanctions and cutting off their access to the US financial system.